Yesterday marked the end of the of first year of ownership.

Since the issues were worked out with the axillary wiring harness, I've been pretty pleased with it. It's great in the snow - which we have 5 months of - and does a great job towing the boat up and down the hills here.

Living in a basin, most trips I take require climbing about 1000 feet, and then descending 4000 to 7500 feet, and the opposite on the return. Going up hill isn't MPG friendly, but going to is great!

Big MPG difference in the summer and in the winter. Those batteries don't like the snow and ice.

Here are the one year stats:

Miles: 13152
Average: 21.5 (21.46 calculated)
Fuel used: 612.8
Engine hours: 316.2

 

Assuming you had another SUV/truck to tow the boat previously, how does the hybrid mileage compare to the mileage of the prior vehicle?

 

Congrats on the 1yr anniversary!

Very interesting and impressive numbers, especially considering boat towing activities.

I am planning to do this measuring experiment myself beginning new year's day and see what results ... hopefully it will be a fair indicator of real world mpg for those considering a Tahoe/Yuk/Esky hybrid and who operate in an urban environment. (80% city - 20% highway)

Thanks for taking the time and effort to catalogue this.

Cheers!

 

I don't do a lot of boat towing - used to have to borrow a neighbor's truck every time I needed to move the boat, so it's great to be able to just hook up the trailer whenever I want to now.

 

Thanks

Wish I had a better way to determine which factors contribute the most to improved mileage. I only have impressions of what has helped.

The most important thing seems to be the warm weather. Big difference between winter mileage and summer mileage. I keep it in 2WD except in the snow.

As soon as the snow left, I pumped up the cold tire pressure to 40 psi. My impression is that this helped a lot - maybe even 10%. Even on a really hot day, my pressure is only at 43-44 which is still a little below the sidewall rating. Trying not to have a blow-out.

Slowing down on the highway also seems crucial (although not always realistic). Traveling at 60 MPH I seem to be able to get over the rated mileage - often 25 MPG or better. Whereas traveling at 70+ MPH it's hard to sustain even 20 MPG. Wish I had a better way of measuring this. Tucking in behind a truck really kicks the mileage up - even keeping a somewhat safe distance. The trucks often are only doing 60-65 so that doubles down on the increase.

A/C seems to cut into the mileage just a touch. Maybe it's just my impression, but it makes sense as far as I understand the hybrid mechanism. If you pull some horsepower off the engine to convert to electricity to feed to the motors and convert to torque to help keep in V4 mode more, then feeding some of that electricity into the A/C instead gives you less electric for the motors and less torque and less time in V4.

Lastly, I try to keep my soft cover tight. Don't know if this really helps or not as it still flaps around some. Been thinking of trying to slide a piece of board just under the cover to see if that would keep it smoother at highway speed. Probably not - and it may not be worth the effort.

 

It's that time of year again - time to celebrate the end of the 2nd year of ownership of the Silverado.

Two year stats:

Miles: 27926
Ave fuel economy: 21.7
Fuel used: 1285.6 (21.72 calculated)
Engine hours: 636.8


The OEM tires have had it. Need a new set of LRR tires with excellent winter performance. I'll start a new thread for that.